19of 23A 1920’s Steinway piano sits in the foyer at the base of a grand staircase.Photo: Julie Soefer

20of 23The living room is a place for quiet conversation and holds part of Martha White’s collection of antique wooden boxes.Photo: Julie Soefer

21of 23The study showcases some of the Whites’ collectibles, including an antique bar cart and barware and antique book of John Gould hummingbird pictures.Photo: Julie Soefer

22of 23The master bedroom has bedding and headboard drapery made of Fortuny fabric.Photo: The Piney Point home of Martha and Walter "Buzz" White.

23of 23The Whites commissioned artist Joseph Adolph to create a large painting for their family room.Photo: Julie Soefer

The oversized white iris on a background of deep greens looms large in the Piney Point family room of Martha and Walter “Buzz” White. The commissioned painting — by artist Joseph Adolph — sets the tone for this finely edited space: textured, layered, refined and luxurious.

The Houston couple bought this 8,000-square-foot home in 2013 because it was time to find a place that suited the new chapter in their lives. Their three children — Matthew, Stewart and Claire Day — are grown and married, and grandchildren have entered the world. Until now, their homes revolved around raising children and accommodating their needs.

Now, though, their home’s grand rooms and comfortable furniture are meant for relaxing or entertaining. In addition to new furnishings and art throughout the home, the couple added an outdoor pavilion to accompany the summer kitchen already there, and they’re sprucing up landscaping, too.

“It’s nice. We don’t use it all of the time, but the other night we were in the pool and watching the baseball game. People sit out there at parties, and it’s another area to go and chat and have a conversation,” said Martha, who’s been a Realtor at Heritage Texas Properties for 18 years.

An evolution

Martha and Walter were high school sweethearts. She’s a second-generation Houstonian, and he grew up in Greenville, S.C., and his family moved here when he was a teen. They were married as seniors at the University of Texas and have now been married 41 years.

Their starter home in Briarwood was a three-bedroom, two-bathroom place with just enough backyard for a garden and a swing set. “That was back when you did your own landscaping and your husband built the fence,” White said with a chuckle. “Back behind us was a cow pasture.”

When their daughter, Claire, was still a baby, they found a bigger home in the Wilchester neighborhood near Memorial. Soon, though, they needed more room but didn’t want to move. Their kids were immersed in the schools there, and Walter and Martha loved the area, too.

They hired an architect to turn their cavernous attic into a second story, expanding that home from 3,000 square feet to 5,000 square feet. Their sons moved into the upstairs bedrooms, and the Whites and their daughter stayed downstairs.

That’s where they lived for many years as their children grew up, went off to college and got married. It’s where they made some of their deepest friendships and went through major life events with neighbors.

“If anyone was going to have a big party it was ‘let’s go to Martha and Buzz’s house,’” Martha said, noting that she and her husband, an energy industry executive, host everything from impromptu parties to holiday events. “Not all men know how to help throw a party, but Buzz is a roll-up-your-sleeves, guy.”

So when they decided it was time for a new place, it wasn’t about needing more space. It was about finding a place that could accommodate parties of all kinds: indoors and outdoors, fancy catered affairs and casual gatherings. Sometimes it’s about hanging out in the pool with kids and grandkids, cooking dinner on the grill and dining al fresco.

“Our daughter was getting married, and we had dreamed of building or getting a house in Memorial. We’d drive up and down streets just looking at homes,” Martha said. As a Realtor, she knew the ins and outs of MLS listings, and she’d search har.com for homes online in her free time.

Buzz was out of town, and Martha found a fabulous home with a street name that sounded familiar. Once she drove by it, though, she knew: They had stumbled onto the street earlier — when none of the homes were for sale — and wrote letters to homeowners asking if they were interested in selling.

But this home was new — just a year old — and its owners had gotten transferred to another city. Buzz wanted to jump on it, but the home already had lots of interest. Martha followed her Realtor instincts, knowing that the number they wrote down had to be their highest and best offer.

They got the home, and the clock was ticking: Martha had promised to host a bridal shower, and they had six months to get it ready.

Time to shop

Once the measuring was done and a furniture inventory taken, the Whites knew that their shopping list would be long. They needed new furniture, art and accessories for every room and in a new color palette, shifting from jewel tones to neutrals with pops of muted colors.

First, Eilers measured furniture in the old house and rooms in the new, and helped Martha decide what would move with her (not much), what would go to her children (not much — they didn’t want it) and what would go into storage to be given away — a lot.

Eilers likes to begin projects by selecting rugs and then choosing upholstery colors and patterns to complement them. In the Whites’ living room, a rug with soft neutrals and a little bit of pale pink and green is topped with two taupe velvet sofas, a pair of celadon armchairs and another high-back chair with a pinkish-peach embroidered pattern. The sofas are filled with patterned pillows in pale green and other colors drawn from the rug, including a couple in lush Fortuny fabric. Side tables are a mix of wood, glass and iron and ceramic, and interesting lamps make the room even more complex.

“I love textures, the combination of textures. It’s all about the mix,” Eilers said. “I’m so practical. I always think about how you’re going to take care of it down the road, when you have grandchildren and all of their sticky little hands. In a room like this, you can have a little bit of Fortuny, wool, linen velvets, I think everything should be able to be used. Antiques — I grew up with antiques — everything should be able to be used. Nothing should be off limits.”

Martha White likes the sense of calm it all brings.

“We have our parties, and 60 percent of our friends still live in the Wilchester area, so they saw my ‘before’ décor and thought it was wonderful. Then they come here, and it’s different, and I’ve had lots of people say how soothing and calm and flowing and tasteful it is,” she said.

The client-designer relationship is always a collaboration, though some clients want to be less involved in the shopping and others want in on every moment. Martha is a shopper, so she landed on the “more involved” side.

“I became an out-of-control looker, and I’d communicate with her ‘what do you think?’ and she’d say ‘yes or let’s think about it.’ If I texted her and I didn’t hear back right away, that was a ‘no.’ Or if she said ‘I’m not sure what I think about that.’ That was a ‘no,’” Martha said to Eilers’ laughter.

Eilers sent plenty of texts to Martha as well. Once, Eilers was shopping in Austin and found a spectacular brass antique bar cart. She texted a photo to Martha and posted it on Instagram, instantly getting lots of reaction. That one photo resulted in Eilers and White buying not one, but three bar carts: one for her sitting room, one for upstairs and one for her daughter.

“My mother’s motto was when one is good, two or three are better. Which is kind of, unfortunately, probably not the way to go,” Martha said with a sly smile.

All of the shopping prompted Martha to expand some of her collections — antique barware and anything made of tortoiseshell — and to start new ones.

One new collection is of 18th- and 19th-century wooden boxes, which she has fallen in love with. One looks like a Bible with inlaid jewels and brass; another is a tea caddy with inlaid mother of pearl and bone handles.

“I love pretty things, and I love antiques. I appreciate the history and the uniqueness of them. It’s not just that they’re pretty, but that they were used for a function way back in the 1700 or 1800s,” White said.

The collection got a big boost when Kathy Crow of Crow and Company Antiques, a dealer at the Antiques Pavilion in Houston had gotten a new shipment from Europe with several wooden boxes. Eilers brought a group of them to White’s home to see if she liked any.

“I think we’ll need them all,” was her response.

That collection is largely kept in the living room, where small groups often gather for quiet conversation during parties.

Across the hall is a study, decorated in a more masculine way with grass-cloth wallpaper, grass window shades and a large sisal rug topped with a zebra hide. A large chandelier made of antler adds a dash of Texana, and Buzz’s collection of Texas historical memorabilia is kept in this room, including currency issued by the Republic of Texas and a document for an 1861 Confederate States $1,000 bank loan.

Art is another big part of the Whites’ new home. She and Eilers hired art consultant Lea Weingarten, who commissioned artist John Alexander to paint a large piece drawn from a photo that Martha and Buzz took on a Canadian ski vacation when they captured rays of sunshine peeking through the fog on a snow-capped mountain. Alexander initially resisted, but his family members were taken by the sentiment in the beautiful photo, so he agreed.

Because the home was only a year old, nothing really needed to be updated. They opted to find another slab of granite to create a deeper counter on the kitchen island, and they hired a painter who specializes in faux finishes to make the range hood look like it was made of zinc, lifelike rivets included.

Eilers went on a major search for new lighting, though, and swapped out lighting in every room in the house, getting most of the fixtures from William Gardner Antiques and finding plenty of antiques in Round Top.

All of it is meant to make the Whites’ party hosting even better, whether they’re having a formal party, a family holiday dinner or something even more casual, like parties during sporting events like a football or baseball game.

“We went to an Astros (2017) World Series game, and I went to get some popcorn. When I got back, my husband said, ‘Wow you’ve been gone a long time.’ And I said, ‘Well, I had to get our stuff and then I bought season tickets for next year.’ I got caught up in the moment,” she said. “I’m a native Houstonian, and I’ve always been a baseball fan since I watched the Colt .45s. It’s a sport that you can have a conversation with someone and not miss a whole lot.”

Diane Cowen has worked at the Houston Chronicle since 2000 and currently its architecture and home design writer. Prior to working for the Chronicle, she worked at the South Bend (Ind.) Tribune and at the Shelbyville (Ind.) News. She is a graduate of Purdue University and is the author of a cookbook, "Sunday Dinners: Food, Family and Faith from our Favorite Pastors."